Say “Nope” to Taupe

Some of you may be aware that I have a history of making BOLD, INNOVATIVE, ORIGINAL color choices for the walls around here. Well, I’ve done it again. After speaking with our real estate agent and being told that taupe was the new hot neutral, I thought,”Whaaaaaa? Nope. Ugh. Taupe is lame.”

I mean, come on. Taupe? Neutral, yes. Hot, no. Beige was the color to beat in the early 90’s. Changing the name to “taupe” isn’t going to fool anyone. C’mon, trendsetters. Try harder. Right?

But then, while digging through my leftover-paint supply to double-check the name of the kitchen color, because I wanted to do the cohesive trick where you paint adjoining rooms all the same color so they look bigger, I realized that the most recent room I painted is taupe. Or “French Canvas,” if you don’t want anyone to realize that you’ve painted a room beige. And it looks so nice that I’ve been considering painting the guest room and all the hallways the same color.

*Sigh* Excuse me for a moment while I tuck my tail and follow the interior design shepherds with the rest of the flock.

But! I will not concede quietly to the Great Beige Deception. Even as blue-gray faces the twilight of its reign, I will fight to keep it on its throne, knowing that, in my heart, the battle is already lost, and this house’s future lies with taupe.

Behold, my dining room. Blue-gray’s last stand.

Well, almost last stand. The living room is slated for the same treatment, so I guess the LAST last stand is still to come.

We had a bunch of people over for brunch the other day, and one of my friends said,”Wow, it looks so modern in here!” Yes, yes it does. Take that, taupe.

Now, I know how much you all like before-and-afters, so I tried to put one together for you. But it’s not very dramatic, see?

So I dug a little further back into the archives, because it’s important that we all get our kicks.

And then, because the thing about before-and-afters is that the more you take in, the bigger hit you need in order to be sufficiently impressed, I went even further back into the archives.

Awwww yeeeeeaaahhhh. That’s the good stuff.

Although now I wonder if that friend at brunch just meant “It looks so modern compared to how it used to look,” and not “it looks modern compared to taupe.”

Whatever. Better to be stuck in 2010 than whatever era those red curtains came from, amiright?*

*Carbon dating or some other science-y hocus pocus could probably prove that those curtains existed cerca A.D. 2006-2010, but that was pre-blog, so there is no real evidence that A) I have made bad decor decisions as recently as 2010, or B) I have made bad decor decisions, ever.

Weirdly, though, this makeover doesn’t seem that dramatic to me. Perhaps because it’s taken so. damn. long. Or perhaps because, in my head, my dining room has looked like this for years already. When other people were seeing this:

I was pretty much seeing this:

And I say “pretty much,” because there is still one thing missing. In my head, this room has crown molding.

And if your first reaction was “CROWN MOLDING OMG YAAAASS,” then welcome, my friend. Come hold my hand in commiseration. Because, alas, in order to to install crown molding, we must first do something about the popcorn ceiling. And de-popcorning the ceiling is not on the list of approved get-the-house-ready-to-sell projects.

And if I de-popcorn and crown-mold the dining room, I have to do it to the living room too, thereby doubling the scope of the project and making it that much harder to slip it under the radar of my handlers right now.

But I feel you. So let’s put a pin in the crown molding for now, because I’ve been promised that we don’t have to put the house on the market until we find a place to buy, and there’s no telling when that might happen. I’ve also been promised that I can do the crown molding after the other approved projects have been completed. So we might still have time.

After the buffet is done.

And the living room.

And the bathroom.

And the purple room.

Then — if we still haven’t found another house — then, we can do the crown molding. Chris promised.

Comments

Handler, schmandler..ha. I have one too, alas. In the pictures, the dining room just looks neutral, perhaps a neutral with grayish undertones versus yellow undertones. In your house, it looks great. It’s a neutral which all the real estate say is helpful to sell a house. I would think that is what matters most.

Hmmmm, your taupe appears to be more yellow than taupe in the photos to me…..and I like yellow. Taupe (beige by any other name is still beige)? Not so much. But, oddly enough, the color I chose for the upper walls in my master bathroom is “putty” which is a taupe or greige and while it is a very, very, very pale “putty”, it’s still in the taupe, greige family. In my defense however, I chose that color BEFORE greige became a thing by at least a year if not longer. So maybe the designers were copying me? Lol!

Ug, I had an awful day today, so it’s awesome to come here and find a new post from you about you moving forward! That’s a good looking dining room. Throw a chunky glass “thingie” on the table and you’re ready for a magazine shoot.

As to the crown molding…. check my comment of 2-3 posts ago. The character count of this comment is not large enough to contain all the A’s in my YAAAAAAAAS! It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, right??